zstarbux
Dec 2, 2012
Undergraduate / Page 87 of Autobiography (VCU); the white ceiling, covered in cracks vs inspiration [3]
I'm normally a really good writer, but I cannot cannot CANNOT get this one to work. Let me know what I should do.
The prompt: Write page 87 of your autobiography.
I have this (also, because it's page 87, it's supposed to start mid-sentence):
"the ceiling, still, did not prove a good source for inspiration: white and unblinking, covered in cracks forming tributaries to the walls. The document, open on my achingly bright computer, sat across the room from me, the blinking cursor impatiently tapping its foot. I could imagine the article's accompanying photo of the new subway station to Seoul, its clean, sans-serif headline, the tagline - "Letter from Pyongyang: A sudden perestroika. Can it work?"
I walked to the desk and pawed through my hard drive for correspondences with Korean citizens. They had all been somewhat lost in translation. Across the Indo-European and Altaic language families, "Are you still planning on keeping your Kim family portraits hung up?" must have changed to something entirely different, because most of the answers I got included what translated to "but probably not andoeji" or "will haunt strange it them."
My notes, thrown out of frustration onto the side of my desk, included now unintelligible jottings about "photographs of statue's feet only" and "retroactivity." Laika snored loudly from her bed in the corner, raising her head every now and then to let out a muffled bark at a passing car. The washing machine, two rooms away, shuddered with the weight of my clothing.
Everything seemed easier to write about, but so much uglier: the college students clicking their high heels on the floor upstairs, the smell of carrots and cauliflower from the cart on the corner. A plane zoomed overhead.
I turned back to the document and wrote "On the morning of February 12th," considering the possibility of leaving the page blank and calling it a new genre of poetry.
I opened up the pictures one man had sent me, dragging across my desktop reflections of Pyongyang's propaganda spilling into street puddles, sorrow-mouthed tea saleswomen, three plain-clothed men standing in front of a bleak blue building, perhaps a factory. "On the morning of February 12th, a man named DK became the first North Korean to sign up for an e-mail account." Finally, a start."
EDIT: spelling
I'm normally a really good writer, but I cannot cannot CANNOT get this one to work. Let me know what I should do.
The prompt: Write page 87 of your autobiography.
I have this (also, because it's page 87, it's supposed to start mid-sentence):
"the ceiling, still, did not prove a good source for inspiration: white and unblinking, covered in cracks forming tributaries to the walls. The document, open on my achingly bright computer, sat across the room from me, the blinking cursor impatiently tapping its foot. I could imagine the article's accompanying photo of the new subway station to Seoul, its clean, sans-serif headline, the tagline - "Letter from Pyongyang: A sudden perestroika. Can it work?"
I walked to the desk and pawed through my hard drive for correspondences with Korean citizens. They had all been somewhat lost in translation. Across the Indo-European and Altaic language families, "Are you still planning on keeping your Kim family portraits hung up?" must have changed to something entirely different, because most of the answers I got included what translated to "but probably not andoeji" or "will haunt strange it them."
My notes, thrown out of frustration onto the side of my desk, included now unintelligible jottings about "photographs of statue's feet only" and "retroactivity." Laika snored loudly from her bed in the corner, raising her head every now and then to let out a muffled bark at a passing car. The washing machine, two rooms away, shuddered with the weight of my clothing.
Everything seemed easier to write about, but so much uglier: the college students clicking their high heels on the floor upstairs, the smell of carrots and cauliflower from the cart on the corner. A plane zoomed overhead.
I turned back to the document and wrote "On the morning of February 12th," considering the possibility of leaving the page blank and calling it a new genre of poetry.
I opened up the pictures one man had sent me, dragging across my desktop reflections of Pyongyang's propaganda spilling into street puddles, sorrow-mouthed tea saleswomen, three plain-clothed men standing in front of a bleak blue building, perhaps a factory. "On the morning of February 12th, a man named DK became the first North Korean to sign up for an e-mail account." Finally, a start."
EDIT: spelling
